Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words 20150222 : vimarsana.com

CSPAN2 After Words February 22, 2015

Next a combat a combat veteran of the war in afghanistan and author of the work talking about his search for a Meaningful Life and the people who had inspired him along the way. So just a little bit about you. I studied all of the role that you have had army captain Rhodes Scholar white house fellow with the state Department International investment banker tv producer host bestselling author political and economic analyst. By my guess you are 60 years old. But you dont look 6d. You have been married recently so i dont know how that works but so you are not 6d . Guest not yet. Host but somehow you got all of this great life already in these accomplishments so its really great switch because of those experiences you have been able to write two books articulating the experiences and life lessons and other examples of your journey through this time in your life. Its really amazing. You are a talented writer and a really good storyteller. This is a very good read but they tell you. I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it and i am busy like a lot of professionals who work but it was really worth my time to read this. First lets talk about the book generally. Why write this book collects what compelled you after your other great book the other wes moore what inspired you to write this . Guest first its an absolute honor to be here. And you know i remember the conversation i had with the publisher about what turned them to be a work where they were telling me one of the most common questions we get about the other wes moore is what happened next because it stops abruptly in 2000. I want to try to get people to wait for both of those stories my story and the other west who is in your 14 of the light sentence in a Correctional Institution of maryland. When i thought about this idea what happened afterwards in it there was no way i could tell more about my life since then because its impossible to give people my story and two west at this point. I could write about wests life in a paragraph. Thats a life decision he made and the like that he now looks forward to every single day. When they said why dont you write about your time in afghanistan or your time working in the white house doing these things and what success has meant to you that actually cause me to pose for a second. That word success and what that actually means because i felt like over the past decade it wasnt so much an easy life to divide where it was or where would be but it was this constant search to find something that matters to find a sense of impact, to find a sense of greatness that you can can latch onto them have it be all your own. So what i then tried to do with the work understand the idea of your work isnt necessarily an occupation. Your work is one of your greatest gifts and your greatest joys began to start overlapping and then you actually choose to do something about it. With the story of what i want to talk about with both my adventures and misadventures but to celebrate what the work is sent so many workers and people who arent so many Different Industries have found their point which makes life really exciting. Host well i think what is unique about this book is to go back and forth pretty at people in your life that have come in and out of your life and chapters and you weep in your experiences. Its very cleverly done but a couple of things i want to talk about today but one of the things i really liked when he talks about that work and how you make it meaningful for your life and others is to have passion. Im a big believer in having passion for your work. In fact so much so that i have talk people out of jobs because they didnt have passion for their work. And its not that they were not an effective contributor as an employee in the cases that im referring to. It was the fact that they didnt have a passion for the place they were in at that time. They could move into another place and have great passion and become an outstanding contributing team member. I think about and volunteerism is Community Service and millions of americans are volunteering as a federal agency and partnership with nonprofits but what about my Board Members. One of my Board Members was the wife of the senate she said put your passion into action. I think that is what you are referencing oftentimes throughout this book where if you are passionate about something it may be mistrustful and theres another thing we dont talk about and to me if you find someone who is passionate and you say while mackey will sure are passionate about your work is also saying you are authentic, you are genuine you are the real deal. I dont think you can fake passion. How do you feel about some of the individuals you write about . Do you feel that is true that they are authentic people . Guest i feel like its one of the only unifying themes. I have come to really believe that if you look at people who are really great at what they do, i mean really really great at their work, at their job and what they take on there is only one thing that all of them have in common. Its not their family history, its not what part of the country or if they are from this country. The thing that every person that falls into the great category of what they do is they are incredibly passionate. I have never met anyone who is great at what they do and you asked you asked and you enjoy it they say its okay. I have never heard that before. Its only people who wake up in the morning think about it and they go to bed at night thinking about what they do because its their lifeblood. I remember when i was leaving to head back into the world of finance i was leaving the times and i went to see a mentor of mine a guy named bill brody who is a former president Johns Hopkins university. He asked me me what are you doing that; im going back into the world of finance. He said really . I said thats not the answer that i was expecting to hear. He said just tell me why. Why did you choose to do this . I told them i felt like was an important skill set and i felt like i was good at it and i was protecting and supporting my family in ways that i had never been able to support them before. He said listen wes im never going to judge you particularly things you think that are best for your family but he said i just ask this. The moment you feel like you can leave, leave because every day you do something that you are not passionate about you become extraordinarily ordinary. Host well said. Guest that hit me like a ton of bricks because we all are striving to do something special. We strive to make a mark on this world so long after we are gone or impact is still around. Its impossible to do that if you find yourself becoming extraordinarily ordinary because you dont care about what it is you are doing. Get. Host i totally agree. Passion turns into a authenticity carrying and success so i think you can line them up. In our life work we need to make sure we land in a place that we care about. Otherwise its not worth anyones time. The organization you are serving or yourself or family members and it works against you if you are not happy until feel passionate. Guess when you become dispensable. You are not great at what you do you become dispensable and thats something we saw with these people. They achieve. They achieved their greatness because as dr. King said everyone can be great because everyone can serve. That is part of the beauty. When you lose yourself in other people, when you lose yourself in this idea that i have something to contribute something bigger and i am part of her world is bigger than myself that is how people find their passion. Host thats so true. A couple of things i want to go through but i also want to reference one particular individual in your life and his name is daniel blavatsky. In every book you read at least for me there is always a moment that you just almost exhaled. This is one of those moments. I will set this up where the viewers today but what this is about is his grandfather a lithuanian his grandfather was jewish and his father. His fathers grandfather in europe and the nazi lithuanian people were killing jewish people at this time. This is pretty tragic. He comes back to his apartment complex and he sees the superintendent who was there on a regular basis and the superintendent says theres something going on thats tragic. He didnt exactly know what it was. I will let the readers read but it looks really bad and the superintendent says whats going on . He says well unfortunately i have had to tell the nazis who the jewish residents are and they killed all of them. He said oh my and here is what the superintendent said to daniel blavatskys grandfather and his father was there. I spared you because you treated me with respect. You looked me in the eye so i spared you. Now get your stuff and get out of here. Daniel lipinski, the grandson goes on influence by his parents and his grandfathers story goes on to create an Organization Called kind but that is such a powerful statement. Because this gentleman was just being himself and he obviously was a kind individual and he cared about others. This was the superintendent of the building. Most of us never Pay Attention to and i imagine if we dug deep into his grandfathers life he would have been that way and treated people all of his life that way. Its a powerful lesson wes to us about treating others with respect and generosity and kindness. Tell me more about how you feel about daniel. Guess that daniel is such a role model to me. Also because you think about that decision and daniel is clear. He says i cant condone the actions of the man because he is fully saved my family there were so many others that were killed. But you think about had a different decision been made by that individual i would never have known him. The world would have never known the contributions that he had given every single day. We dont know how much her actions are going to impact ourselves and others. I had a student wants is said to me there are certain decisions more important than others and i thought it was a really interesting question and i said my ms answer is yes certain decisions are bigger than others. The problem is we dont know which ones are which. So what then happens is we then have to treat every decision that we make with the gravity that decision might one day earn earn. So this idea that do you go in one direction or another or say hello to the Person Holding the door for you . Do you treat the person down on my block with a sense of respect or apathy . Part of the beauty of it is that this isnt just for an adolescent. We are going to make 25 decisions before we go to bed tonight that will help determine what our tomorrow looks like. We then have to treat each and every one of those decisions with a sense of gravity. One of the other things that was powerful about the story is to talk about who his mother, his father would tell them that story and how his mother would tell the father and say dont tell them. They are so small. Dont tell the kids though stories and his father were saying they have to hear it. We had to live it and it goes to show the importance of making sure that stories are then passed on and people understand the nature but we are talking about and the humanity behind what we talk about. Sometimes we think we can share things because we are sparing. They dont need to hear that they dont need to know that but if they dont know their own past in their own history how are we supposed to keep that in context when we think about her on future . Daniel story in so many ways epitomized a so i think we should think about our past and e how kindness can truly change the world. Host and make you feel good good to matter. I will tell you i dont understand people who walk around their life and they are just down and withdrawn. It makes you feel good. I am someone who talks to the person in the elevators on the wrong one to talk about this but it lifts me up. Another individual and its very uplifting. A young afghanistan, young man and i think when you met him maybe real young. He actually works for the u. S. Army as an interpreter. And he had a tragic story on his own but it was really uplifting to hear your connection with this young man and how he helped your unit at great risk of peril to himself and other loved ones im sure. What is so special about him . Guest i would argue that abdullah had more than even us. There wasnt a Single Mission we went on that abdullah wasnt there in the fight with us. There wasnt a single operation that we conducted and some pretty dangerous operations that abdullah was right there. We couldnt do her our job in many ways without him. He spoke all the local languages. Whenever we were communicating with people he was the person i was with us helping understand what people were saying if we had things that we wanted people to know was him passing on the messages. The thing that was so amazing for us is abdullah when we were done with missions and returned back to the Forward Operating bases we had all of our soldiers in these areas that we had soldiers patrolling. Abdullah went back home and there were these things called in afghanistan. They were these letters that were left on the doors of people who were working for the coalition. They would say we know you were working for the coalition and we are going to kill you and your entire family. They were left by the taliban or whatever groups go inside the area. Abdullah was getting these letters all the time. Everybody knew who he wasnt who he was working for. Every single day he showed up for work. Every single day despite knowing that risk he showed up for work. Heres a person whose father was killed by the taliban. He did it because he felt like i dream of a future in this country without the taliban. I dream of the day when they are no longer a prison force and we can live our lives with a sense of freedom. He fought and he did it because he believed in something bigger. To see the level of courage and bravery that he brought on was just remarkable to me. I deeply have a great admiration for my paratroopers who i serve with but the admiration i have for abdullah and these other people who have risked their lives everyday is tantamount to that as well. Host you didnt give yourself enough credit about your influence on abdullahs life because if we had interviewed abdullah i would imagine he would save as a mentor you played a role and maybe others in the unit as well. Let me shift to another thing in the book that i really liked. It seemed like every individual in the book including yourself all had a Guardian Angel or someone in their lives that helped steer them. Not necessarily out of trouble because many had lots of trials and tribulations which you articulates so well but there was always a theme of Something Like like my brothers keeper which president obama is talking a lot about for all young boys and girls. We need to really as adults we need to be a Guardian Angel for these young boys and girls. If you think about a country that always had someone to guide them i really think it would make a difference. Their Statistical Research that mentoring has so many positive effects on individuals. Now we know by research its true. We know it now legitimately. You dont give yourself enough credit but my guess is abdullah would say yes wes was my rock as well. Guess who really i think we explain this definition of family and thats something we all collectively have to do. Families and just someone who you are born to or boerner brown or someones dna that runs through your veins. Some family is someone you love and respect and protect. I bring a theological perspective to it as well. If we are all gods children then by definition we are all brothers and sisters. I think we then need to treat each other that way. Host the world would be a better place. I think we are making progress. I just went to a mentors conference and it was the largest attendance they have had since they started the summit. So thats very encouraging. Whats encouraging is the actors are interesting. Now we have corporations involved in mentoring very structured to successful curriculumbased sometimes a value weighted in a measured way. I sat with a person that is doing amazing work and they are having a lot of fun doing it. And nonprofits and philanthropic leaders government leaders. So we are getting a lot of people and organizations of all types. The Faithbased Community has been there for a long time. They are even stepping up their game and all of the leaders are. I think we are going in the right direction with this. I think this is something that is again Service Volunteerism in america. As part of our dna and this is part of how we can serve others. Guest and also how we think about it. Part of the beauty of it is that we think about the world that we want to live in the only way we are going to have the world we want to live in is if we can have a broader more inclusive conversation where everyone feels like theres a vested interest in their success where everybody feels like they are part of a conversation. A couple of things that are interesting about the idea of service. The best way to think about service is even if you are not going to do it to be selfless do it to be selfish because it creates a better world that you and your family will live in. I was talking to a friend of mine who is an engineer and i wanted him to speak to some kids in baltimore. I said tell us literally what you do every day because i want her kids to understand professions and that kind of thing. He was telling me i really admire the work but to be honest my service is with my daughters. Hes an amazing father worked for his daughters. My point back west i completely respect that but how are you helping your daughters when you go to school that has a 50 Graduation Rate . How are you helping your daughters when some point they will look for a partner to spend their life with them if you look at the young people and young men inside the area that 61 are in some form of supervision by the state if you want to help your daughters create a society that they can be safe and prosperous and happy in. If you are not going to do to be selfless duo to be selfish. Harry belafonte i had a chance to an interview him on msnbc. He was a huge lesson in my household growing up in part of it because he has an amazing talent and my grandmother was attracted to him. Also he made his celebrity mean something. There are a lot of people do once they continue to rise they stay away from controversial issues because they are afraid p

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